Conventional processes of manufacturing belts suitable for clothing, garments, or apparel are typically done by very slow production processes, including sewing which cannot be done on high-speed machines. It is conventional in the garment industry, to make belt loops by folding a long strip of fabric longitudinally, usually the same fabric as used for the rest of the garment. The seam may be closed by stitching with a specialized seaming machine to form long continuous webs, or by gluing, or thermo-bonding, or by other conventional means. These webs are then fed into a second specialized machine designed to cut the webs into relatively short strips of suitable lengths for subsequent sewing of the garment in the form of belt loops. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,140, it is described to cut and seal such strips simultaneously.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,681,406 (Timberland) relates to the making of garment belts including an extendible insert, which may flex or stretch, while the belt is being worn so that the belt adapts to variations in the wearer's waist size and shape.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,154 describes the making of a belt preferably of a polyethylene material, where the cutting edge as well as side walls and holes are fused by the application of heat thereto to avoid the unravelling of the thermoplastic material. The longitudinal closing is performed by sewing.
However none of the disclosed processes allows the manufacturing of belts at very high production speeds, in particular, if these belts are composed of several materials or pieces. In the present context, very high production speeds relates to the manufacturing of more than about 500 items of Baby products, or 300 items of adult incontinence products per minute, corresponding to manufacturing web speed of more than about 250 m/min. Such mass production is typically based on web materials such as but not limited to the ones described in the above mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,154, namely synthetic materials, although conventional belt materials such as leather or woven materials may be used.
A particular application of a belt or a hoop structure is in articles or garments, which are worn on the wearer, mostly though not exclusively on a human wearer. Therein, hoops may encircle the waist of a wearer, such as conventional belts do. They may also encircle the head, legs or other extremities of a wearer, such as headbands or sock suspender do. Other articles may include both a waist hoop and leg hoops, as pants may do.
The manufacturing of pants-like structures is well known in the art, often described for disposable diapers or pants. Also here, high speed production refers to production speeds in the order of magnitude of 500 to 1000 articles per minute, corresponding to even more than about 500 in/min. Out of the plethora of publications, reference is made to EP1428487A1, EP1224875A1 or U.S. Pat. No. 6,098,557, describing the long followed approach of adding various elements to a continuous web, cutting this composite web into articles shortly before packaging, just followed by folding and optionally by closing the folded articles to form pants or pants-like structures. The webs, chassis elements, and articles remain essentially flat throughout the manufacturing, whereby the partly or fully assembled article may be flat folded onto other parts. Also in U.S. Pat. No. 6,926,702 an essentially 2-dimensional diaper is disclosed, where leg extensions are connected to the crotch region.
In contrast to such conventional approaches, a more recent approach has been developed by Concepts for success e.K. (C-4-S) and published in various patent publications (WO 06/102974A1, WO 08/037281A1, WO 06/103487A1, or WO 061102973A1 filed as PCT application PCT/EP2008/003844, unpublished—hereinafter referred to as the PCT'3844 application), which altogether are hereinafter referred to as “recent C-4-S applications”. The articles as described therein can assume a particularly well fitting body conforming shape by having leg features, such as leg cuffs or leg hoops, which are connected to the centre region of the article along a curved connecting line. Upon donning of the article these leg features are up- or downwardly folded, such that they neatly conform to the shape of the legs of the wearer, thereby achieving good sealing against leakage whilst being very skin friendly. Further the articles can assume a 3-D shape, preferably in the form of a concave cup shape, so as to readily receive bodily discharges.
The recent applications also disclose manufacturing processes and corresponding equipment arrangements for producing such articles.
In the PCT'3844 application articles such as pants or pants-like structures are described, which comprise leg hoops which are folded over along a fold line and which encircle the legs of a wearer during use, and to the manufacturing of such articles. The leg hoops are manufactured by flipping front and rear parts of the hoop material, thereby creating the hoop structure which is essentially with one and the same surface in contact with the skin of the wearer. For certain designs as described therein, the body conforming 3D or cup shape of the article is further supported if the leg hoop is folded upwardly (i.e. the lateral edges in the crotch region are oriented towards the crotch crease of the wearer during use).
Whilst the methods as described therein are very flexible for most product design applications, they pose certain limitations such as to the relative positioning of certain article features. Henceforth, it is an object of the present invention to provide an alternative process for forming articles, and also to provide certain specific article designs.